What does it mean today? Has the dream come true?

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

 

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites, among others, would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters,^[1] the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in human history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.^[2] According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized . By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."^[3]

 

 

Today I wonder, has that dream really come true? Do we as a people really co-exist harmoniously today? Are we really all equal?

 

I wonder if that's true.

 

I've heard many point to Barack Obama's election as President of the United States of America in 2008 as a definitive 'yes' to such a question. And it's true that it's something truly awesome to expereince.

 

But the context of it isn't completely clear for me. For one thing, this country on many levels have been (and a largely still are) a very large mess of problems, many of which are unsolved. People's lives are more screwed up due to their loss of jobs, loss of their homes, loss of financial security. Many more face health crises, and even more face additional health care costs crises. Some of us wonder if everything we've worked for will mean something later on in life. I wonder if I'll have any money left to take care of my family when I can no longer work. Then I wonder about the state of the world. I wonder if I'm really doing my part to make the world a better place for my kids. I wonder why people in the country are not really doing more to address some of changes going on with our globe (i.e. that it's getting warmer) and why it's not being done now.

 

I ask that of others, but perhaps I really need to ask myself first.

 

And it's within this larger context - that is, people's lives are so much more messed up that they either hit or are near rock-bottom - that they finally decided to change who represents them in government.

 

And what further messes will they - and other kids - have to clean up, in addition to the ones mine and previous generations have failed to resolve?

 

And will my kids truly be seen for who they are. Often times, it doesn't matter how smart or how nice or how strong one is. Sadly, I think in this day and age, a lot of people still think with their eyes. They see a skin color and their underlying assumptions of what that means to them really dictate the way they treat the person in front of them.

 

There's no doubt the dream still persists. There's no doubt many of us still pursue it. To me pursuit of the dream of equality is just a part of the larger dream - the pursuit of liberty and happiness.

 

And I really think - there is still so much more to be done.